Monday: Welcome to Hearst's Watery Wonderland, Welcome to Opera Ikea

How do you get Mayor Bloomberg, S.I. Newhouse, Arthur Sulzberger, and Ms. Oprah Winfrey in one room together? Cathy Black has the answer–tonight she’s hosting the grand opening gala for the new Norman Foster-designed Hearst Tower. These days, $500 million buys you a rainwater waterfall (there’s also “The Wave”), and rainwater buys you a “green” certificate. (See below…) (NY Post)

After his hippy Tribeca rock club closed down, Peter Shapiro formed a environmental consultancy firm named GreenOrder with his brother Andrew. It’s been six small years, but their group has helped 7 World Trade Center become New York’s first “gold” office building, and now the Shapiros are working with GE’s $47.5 billion real estate holdings. Up next: A $2.6 billion environmentally friendly mall in upstate New York. Green greed is good! (NY Times)

New York’s Young Architects’ Forum isn’t so young anymore. The YAF club–for cool kids like Steven Holl, Neil Denari, and Billie Tsien–is turning 25. Hurrah! Yet this year the group’s theme is “instability,” which proves that Crash Anxiety has finally spilled over from the brokers and bankers to the architects. (Metropolis)

The City Opera suffers the daily indignity of performing in the NY State Theater (merely a sound-enhanced ballet hall), though even cheaper is Toronto’s new, unfancy “Ikea Opera House.” Can imperfect buildings hurt the music? Yes! “Architecture is everything,” sneers Anthony Tommasini. (NY Times)